John Elway doesn’t like the word rebuild because it “sounds like an excuse.” The team’s standards are still the same, and its long-held goal to always try to vie for a Super Bowl remains in place, he says.
But the reality is the Broncos have gone 20-28 since Super Bowl 50, have failed to return to the playoffs and are indeed in need of a rebuild, revamp, reset, redo or whatever you want to call it.
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To start, they hired former Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio to replace Vance Joseph, who guided the Broncos to their first back-to-back losing seasons in 46 years. But the move is just the beginning of what figures to be a significant makeover.
They still face a number of difficult decisions with veteran players, they don’t have a clear answer at quarterback, still need an offensive coordinator, still need improvement on the offensive line, could really use some help on a defense that once ranked among the league’s best, might be looking at yet another system change and, to top it off, have a brewing ownership dispute that has no timetable for a resolution.
To get back to the playoffs or to even finish .500, the Broncos still have plenty of work to do this offseason.
Greatest offseason needs: It’s been three years since Peyton Manning retired, and the Broncos still don’t have a long-term solution at quarterback. They had hoped Case Keenum would be able to replicate his play from Minnesota, but his first year in Denver paled in comparison. He has one year remaining on his contract and Fangio and Elway have both said he’s the quarterback “for now,” indicating nothing is set in stone.
So as the Broncos reshuffle the staff and the roster, they don’t have a clear future at the most important position on the field. Because of the failed Paxton Lynch selection, they don’t even have a backup; the Broncos traded away Trevor Siemian to give Lynch another shot to earn the backup job, but even then he couldn’t hold on to the No. 2 spot.
All seven of the Broncos’ Super Bowl appearances in the Pat Bowlen era have come with elite quarterbacks at the helm — five with Elway and two with Manning. To get back there, the Broncos need a true starter, not just a bridge quarterback keeping the spot warm for another player not even on the team.
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But there’s another need just as paramount to the future of the franchise: The Broncos need to settle their ownership situation.
The dispute over Bowlen’s succession plan and the management of the trust became public last May, when Beth Bowlen Wallace declared her desire to become controlling owner and was met with a stinging response from the trustees. Broncos president/CEO and controlling owner delegee Joe Ellis has made it clear that Brittany Bowlen, 29, is the preferred candidate among Pat’s seven children, but she is working as an associate at McKinsey & Company consulting and doesn’t have a set timetable to return to the franchise, let alone become qualified to be controlling owner.
Bill Bowlen filed a petition in Arapahoe County District Court to have the trustees removed from power, which has spurred a legal back-and-forth and has prompted Pat’s wife, Annabel, to get involved. Without a timeline for transition to the next owner, the Broncos have uncertainty at the top, which can create uncertainty at the bottom.
Salary cap situation: The Broncos are in decent standing money-wise. According to Overthecap.com, they will have about $45.6 million in cap space for 2019, the 12th-most in the league. That figure could rise depending on the decisions for some veterans. Brandon Marshall, for example, has one year left on his deal. Releasing him would save the team $5 million in cap space.
Impending free agents: The Broncos have 11 unrestricted free agents, not including cornerback Jamar Taylor and center Gino Gradkowski, who signed late in the season because of injuries. Within this group are six starters from 2018 and two first-round draft picks.
The full list, with how each was first acquired by the Broncos:
Shaquil Barrett, OLB — college free agent
Tramaine Brock, CB — unrestricted free agent
Max Garcia, G — fourth-round pick
Jeff Heuerman, TE — third-round pick
Zach Kerr, DE — unrestricted free agent
Matt Paradis, C — sixth-round pick
Domata Peko, NT — unrestricted free agent
Shane Ray, OLB — first-round pick
Bradley Roby, CB — first-round pick
Billy Turner, G — waiver claim
Jared Veldheer, OT — trade
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The Broncos have five restricted free agents:
Shelby Harris, DE — unrestricted free agent
Kevin Hogan, QB — waiver claim
Casey Kreiter, LS — unrestricted free agent
Matt LaCosse, TE — signed off Giants’ practice squad
Jordan Taylor, WR — college free agent
The Broncos could reasonably place a second-round tender worth $3.11 million on Harris to give him a pay raise and preclude other teams from signing him (they would have to give the Broncos a second-round draft pick in exchange). An unheralded free-agent signing two years ago, Harris has been one of their most consistent players on the line and has come up with multiple game-saving plays.
Players under contract who are unlikely to return: Many of the Super Bowl 50 holdovers are now playing on nonguaranteed salaries. Marshall is one. The veteran linebacker has one year remaining on his contract and recently said he’d be willing to restructure his deal to stay. But it’s quite possible his time is up in Denver. The Broncos drafted linebacker Josey Jewell in the fourth round last year and early in the season made him a starter in their base and nickel packages.
Then there’s Su’a Cravens, whom the Broncos acquired in a trade with Washington. The deal was a low-risk gamble for the Broncos, and his first season didn’t go as hoped — at least, not as the Broncos had hoped. Cravens played only five games — knee surgery delayed his start to the season — and, along with Ray, was benched for the last three games of the season, a sign he could be out before his contract expires. Cravens has two years left, but no guaranteed money, so the Broncos could release him without taking a cap hit.
Safety Darian Stewart is another candidate for a possible restructuring. He signed a four-year, $28 million extension in 2016 that carries cap hits of $6.4 million and $6.9 million in his last two years. The salaries, however, are not guaranteed, so the Broncos could either revise his deal to lower his cap hit, or release him and save $3.6 million this season.
Although Stewart was the last and needed piece of the “No Fly Zone” secondary that guided them to Super Bowl 50, the defensive backfield struggled last year amid personnel changes and injuries. Plus, fellow safeties Justin Simmons, who was the only Bronco to play every defensive snap last season, and Will Parks are now eligible for new deals (drafted players can renegotiate after their third season).
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Tagging up: No Broncos player is expected to get a franchise or transition tag this year.
Contract talk: Atop the Broncos’ list to re-sign should be cornerback Chris Harris Jr. and center Paradis.
Harris is the top slot corner in the game and, at 29, hasn’t slowed a bit. His value was magnified late last season when he was lost to a leg fracture and the Broncos’ secondary appeared discombobulated without him.
Harris is not a free agent — he has one year left on his deal — but his $7.8 million salary isn’t guaranteed and he made it clear at the end of the season that he wants a contract that fits his value.
“I want to win, so whatever situation is best for me at the time,” he said. “We’ll see what new coaches we get. It’s late in my career, and I can’t waste any years anymore. It’s time for me to win. I always wanted to retire here and finish my career here, but I’m ready to see what changes and things we do.”
Harris took a “hometown discount” when he signed a five-year, $42.5 million extension in 2014 and probably won’t be able to recoup the money he left on the table when he decided to re-up before hitting the open market.
But he could ask for more.
“Harris can make a case that he should be paid like an elite cornerback ($14 million-$15 million per year), but the Casey Hayward neighborhood might be more realistic,” said former agent and current CBS Sports analyst Joel Corry. “Hayward, who was more underpaid than Harris, signed a three-year, $34.25 million extension — $36 million max value through incentives — with $20 million of guarantees in March.”
Then there’s Paradis, who was on track to become one of the top free-agent centers in March before suffering a season-ending leg fracture in Week 9. The Broncos had discussions with his agent about a new contract before the injury, but no deal was close to fruition. The injury — coupled with the hip surgeries he had a year prior — might give the team pause about his durability going forward. But there’s no denying his value to the team, especially to an offense in need of improvement.
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Free-agent positions to target: Nearly every position is open for this team, and the process of filling them will likely take more than one offseason. Elway has always said he tries to plug the biggest holes in free agency and then fill in around them through the draft (even though he found more success through the draft than in free agency last year).
Among the biggest holes this year are on the offensive line and in the defensive backfield.
The Broncos have two guards about to hit the open market in Garcia and Turner, and their starting left guard, Ron Leary, is recovering from a ruptured Achilles — an injury that could be especially concerning for a big guy. The best players rarely, if ever, hit the open market, but the Broncos could find reinforcement on a line that was decimated with injuries last year.
The Broncos also desperately need to find help at cornerback, especially if Roby and Brock sign elsewhere. Harris Jr. was one of the most consistent players on either side of the ball last year, but he had little help around him. Take away his Nos. 2 and 3 corners, and the Broncos have a gaping hole at the position with little talent in the pipeline. Brendan Langley, a former third-round pick, apparently wasn’t good enough to get playing time even when the group was decimated with injuries last season. Isaac Yiadom had more downs than ups in his first year, and it got so bad that they had to shift Simmons to nickel to fill the void.
Draft position: No. 10.
Positions to target in 2019 draft: Quarterback, defensive line, cornerback, offensive line, inside linebacker, tight end.
Coaching meter: Change alone is a good thing for these Broncos, even though they’ve experienced a lot of it in recent years. At season’s end, they fired Joseph after an 11-21 record over two years and on Wednesday reached an agreement with Fangio to become their fourth coach in six seasons.
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After firing Joseph, Elway said he sought a head coach that showed “greatness” on one side of the ball, one who has experience and has the “it” factor to guide the Broncos out of their three-year, playoff-less rut. Fangio seemingly has that in his 32 years in the NFL (even though not one was as a head coach).
“When he said we’re not going to kill ourselves by inches, it’s not going to be death by inches, to me, that was something that stood out right away,” Elway said of Fangio. “That meant we’re going to get back to get the fundamentals and the foundation of what football is all about, and then we can build from there. We will build from there.”
But the Broncos have a lot of building to do. They’ve been stagnant since their Super Bowl 50 win three years ago, and even the players admit as much.
“We’ve just got to get up new with the times,” Chris Harris said. “What we’re doing, we kind of just stayed doing the same thing we’ve been doing since 2015. It’s 2019 now, tomorrow. We’ve got to evolve. We can’t do the same thing. I’ve got to evolve my game. I can’t think I’m going to still play the same coverage and the way I played in 2015 or 2013. I have to evolve my game, and we have to evolve too.”
The Broncos went against the recent trend in the NFL by hiring an older, defensive-minded head coach. But the feeling from Elway and others in the organization is that Fangio’s defensive expertise, along with his emphasis on details and on teaching, make him the right fit.
Fangio will call the defensive plays: “They hired me because of my work on the defensive side of the ball. I’m going to give them my work on the defensive side of the ball. I believe, for the most part, I’m pretty good at it. So, I’m going to do it,” he said Thursday.
Although it was expected that Kubiak would return as an assistant and perhaps run the offense, the team decided otherwise on Friday and are now compiling a list of candidates around the league who can take their system into the 21st century. The Broncos are keen on incorporating more college concepts to help an offense that has been sitting in neutral for years finally move forward. The decision on the next coordinator is fully Fangio’s.
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What is a real possibility, however, is the hiring of Mike Munchak as their new offensive line coach. Munchak and Fangio were the team’s top finalists for the head-coaching job and they could end up with both, with Munchak working his magic on the Broncos’ line.
Munchak’s contract with the Steelers expired and the Broncos are hopeful he will join Fangio’s staff.
The missing piece: The Broncos have talent on both sides of the ball. They now have a new coach and will soon have an altered staff. They have nine draft picks and plenty of money to spend this offseason.
But what they’ve been missing for two years now is a strong voice in the locker room. For four years, that guy was Manning. For a year after his retirement, it was DeMarcus Ware. The Broncos had hoped to fill that leadership void last year with the signing of Keenum. But the reality is Keenum was in his first year as a Bronco and as a full-time starting quarterback. Von Miller has taken on more of a leadership role later in his career. So, too, has Harris Jr. with the secondary, and Emmanuel Sanders with the receivers. But there’s not that one voice, that one player that others want to show up for and play hard for out of fear of letting him down. Not like Manning or Ware.
The void is felt more than ever when the Broncos lose and need someone to lead them out of a rut. Will Keenum become that guy in Year Two?
At least they have this going for them: Young talent. The Broncos’ class of 2018 provided a foundation to build upon, with outside linebacker Bradley Chubb, leading rusher Phillip Lindsay, receivers Courtland Sutton and DaeSean Hamilton, and inside backer Jewell. The failed picks of the previous draft classes are coming back to haunt the Broncos now as they begin to rebuild, but another infusion of young talent in 2019 would set them up for a bright future. The Broncos need to ace this draft once again, or they’ll be left with even more holes to fill.
The Broncos make the playoffs next year if … their quarterback play improves. If they can’t score more points or have a more efficient offensive product, this team will continue to sputter.
(Photo of Case Keenum (4): Isaiah J. Downing / USA TODAY Sports)